“She got all shocked, worked up some tears, told me I was a horrible person, and ran away. We were eating at the time, and nobody followed her, which probably spoiled her plan.” Desandra leaned forward and winced. “Ow. I keep forgetting not to do that. Anyway, I grew up in a pack that was a minefield. I like that word, by the way. Very nice. I’ve seen her type before. Lorelei is intelligent, meaning she has some brains, but she’s also young and inexperienced. She doesn’t understand what makes people tick and she thinks that everyone is much stupider than her. She’s a classic sociopath: she’s charming and manipulative, she believes she’s entitled, she never genuinely feels guilt, and when she offers an apology, it’s superficial. She mimics happiness and she can probably mimic love. She isn’t psychopathic—her temper is pretty even, she isn’t necessarily predatory, and I can’t see her trying suicide. Way too narcissistic.”

“How the hell do you know all this?” Andrea asked.

Desandra sighed. “I’ve read a lot of psychology books. I started when I was a kid. I was trying to diagnose my father.”

Well, that was a surprise. “What’s the verdict?”

“He is a severe megalomaniac. He has intense narcissistic personality disorder, complete with occasional paranoia. He displays every one of Hotchkiss’s seven deadly sins of narcissism. That’s how I learned to manipulate him. Unfortunately, knowing that didn’t help me with my mental health any, and he also knows which buttons to push.”

“Why don’t you . . .” Andrea struggled for words. “Act more sane?”

“Self-defense,” I told her. Suddenly many things made sense.

“She’s right,” Desandra said. “How long do you think I would survive if they knew I had a brain? The only reason I’m not locked up is because they think I’m emotional and stupid. I am emotional—pregnancy hormones are no joke. But I’m not dumb. My mother was smart, and if you ask my father, he’ll show you many spots where people who thought they were smarter than him are hidden six feet under the ground. If Gerardo’s mother thought for a moment that I had more brains than a butterfly, she’d have kept me under lock and key the entire time I was married to him. When I told Gerardo we couldn’t fight my father, I didn’t do it because I was weak. I did it because I knew we couldn’t win. I thought about it and I weighed the odds, and they were not in our favor. Personally I hope Jarek pisses Curran off. That would be about the only person here who could kill him. Anyway, did you see Lorelei’s book?”

“What book?” I asked.